A central component of International Monetary Fund~IMF! programs is reducing government budget deficits+ We ask how domestic political considerations shape the distribution of cuts made by governments in IMF programs+ Our central finding is that IMF programs shrink the role played by domestic politics+ While democracies allocate larger shares of their budgets to public services in the absence of IMF programs, the difference between democracies and nondemocracies disappears under IMF programs+ This result has important implications for our understanding of government spending priorities under different resource constraints+ We dedicate this article to the memory of Harold K+ Jacobson+ Robert Kaufman, Lisa Martin, Joan Nelson, and two anonymous reviewers for IO provided valuable comments on earlier drafts, and Chris

In this article we explore the ways in which incentives to cultivate a personal vote affect the efficiency of education spending in developing democracies. We argue that where the electoral system provides incentives for political particularism, resources are allocated less efficiently and the effect of increased spending on literacy is diminished. We test our hypotheses using data on education spending and performance in over 40 developing democracies since 1980. We find that though personal vote systems spend just as much on education as party vote systems, particularism in personal vote systems dampens the marginal effect of increased education spending on illiteracy and at its highest levels, incentives to cultivate a personal vote completely undermine the positive effects of increased education spending on literacy.

We extend the literature on openness and spending in developing countries arguing that the effect of increasing openness depends on both regime type and the level of openness. Democracies respond to increases in openness by increasing spending while dictatorships respond by decreasing spending. However, the degree to which countries pursue the strategy of choice depends on the level of openness. In autarkic countries, an increase in import competition has more severe consequences for perceptions of job insecurity and dislocation. In response, government management of openness will be more vigorous under these conditions regardless of whether the leader increases or decreases spending. Economic selection mechanisms at work will produce an outcome wherein, at higher levels of openness, further import liberalization has smaller effects on perceptions of job insecurity and dislocation. Hence, both the demand and the supply of government management of openness will be lower.

In this paper, we examine consequences of party system nationalization. We argue that the degree to which party systems are nationalized should affect the provision of public benefits by governments. When political competition at the national level occurs between parties that represent specific sub-national constituencies, then the outcomes of policy debates and conflicts can lead to an undersupply of nationally focused public services. We test our argument using data on DPT and measles immunization rates for 58 countries. We find that low party system nationalization is a barrier to improvements in these health indicators. Specifically, a substantial presence of regionalized parties hinders states’ convergence toward international heath standards.

Studies of foreign direct investment’s (FDI’s) determinants focus on irreversibility as the main source of governments’ credibility problems. Here, we highlight an underexplored source of time-inconsistency dilemmas: geographic agglomeration within a country. FDI’s tendency to agglomerate creates visible inequalities in the country and generates demands for geographic income redistribution. Unchecked, such redistributive pressures can dissuade investors from entering the country altogether. Not all political systems are equally vulnerable, however. Countries with regionalized party systems are relatively unattractive to investors because regionalism increases the probability that investment returns from one region will be appropriated by the national government and used for geographic-based income redistribution. Countries with national parties, however, are less likely to engage in such behavior. Thus, we predict higher FDI inflows in countries with nationalized party systems and lower inflows in countries characterized by regional parties. Evidence from democracies between 1975 and 2007 supports our argument and its posited causal mechanisms.